Holly made a harrumphing noise and unwound her locked arms, turning her gaze to the caseworker. ‘Have you done a police check on him to make sure he’s the real deal?’
‘I can assure you, Holly, Dr Ravensdale is a totally trustworthy guardian,’ the caseworker said.
Holly pushed her bottom lip out like a drawer as she swung back to size Julius up. ‘Do you drink?’
‘Socially.’
‘Smoke?’
‘No.’
‘Drugs?’
‘No.’
Holly upped her brazenness another notch. ‘Sex?’
‘Holly...’ the caseworker began.
‘What?’ Holly asked with a petulant scowl.
‘You’re embarrassing Dr Ravensdale.’
‘I’m not embarrassed,’ Julius said. ‘But I’m also not going to answer such an impertinent question.’
Holly coughed out a laugh. ‘Which means you’re not getting any, right?’
He stared her down with a look that made her insides feel wobbly. He didn’t look the type of man to go too long between drinks. He looked the type of man who could take his pick of women. She could feel his sensual allure like a force field. Her mind ran wild with images of him getting down to business. He wouldn’t be one for a quick, sleazy grope. He would take his time. He would know his way around a woman’s body. He would know how to send female senses spinning into the stratosphere. She could see it in the darkly confident glint of his gaze. ‘While we’re on the topic,’ he said, ‘I would appreciate it if you would abstain from bringing men here for the purpose of having intimate relations with them.’
‘So...you get to have sex but I don’t? That is...’ Holly dropped her voice to a deliberately husky purr ‘...unless we have it with each other?’
‘I have to get going,’ the caseworker said as her phone buzzed with an incoming message. ‘Holly, I hope you’ll behave yourself while you’re here. This is your last chance, don’t forget. If this fails you know where you’ll be going.’
‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ Holly said with a bored flicker of her eyelids as she turned to look at the view from one of the windows next to a wall of bookshelves. She didn’t want to go to prison but neither did she want to be exploited by yet another man who assumed he had some sort of power over her. If Julius Ravensdale wanted a plaything, why hadn’t he cut one from the herd? The herd he belonged to—the ‘beautiful people’ herd. She wasn’t even his type. How could she be, with her cheap chain-store clothes? Not to mention her background. The background she was still trying to escape. It clung to her like thick axle grease. No amount of washing and cleansing and sanitising would remove it.
Julius Ravensdale came from money. She could see it in the way he dressed, in the way he held himself with supreme confidence, with cool and collected authority. She could see it in the furnishings he surrounded himself with: the priceless paintings, the books and the hand-woven floor coverings. He hadn’t lived his childhood in sweat-soaked fear. He hadn’t had to fight for survival. He’d had everything handed to him on a gilt-edged platter. Why was he agreeing to have her here if not to make use of her? She clenched her back teeth in determination. He would not use her.
She would use him first.
* * *
‘I’ll call each day to see how she’s getting on,’ the caseworker said to Julius as she shook his hand. ‘It’s very good of you to commit to this programme. It’s helped many people turn their lives around.’
‘I’m sure everything will be fine,’ Julius assured her. ‘Sophia will do most of the mentoring.’
‘All the same, it’s very kind of you to open your home like this.’
‘It’s a big house,’ he said. Maybe not big enough.
Julius turned once Sophia had escorted the caseworker out of his office to find Holly looking at him with a flinty gaze. ‘How much are they paying you to have me?’ she said.
‘I’ve told them to donate the fee to charity.’
‘Big of you.’
He leaned against the windowsill behind his desk with his hands balanced either side of his hips to study her. It was a casual pose that belied the havoc her presence caused to his senses. He could feel the blood humming through his veins in a way it hadn’t since he’d been a teenager. He looked down at her upturned, defiant face with its flashing caramel-brown gaze and sulky cherry-red mouth. A tiny diamond winked from the side of her right nostril. The bridge of her retroussé nose was dusted with freckles that reminded him of nutmeg sprinkled on top of a dessert. But that was about as far as he could go with the sweetness description. She looked sour and bitter and ready for a fight.
Something about her blatant rudeness made everything that was cultured in Julius stiffen. Not, perhaps, the best choice of word, he thought wryly as he scanned her impudent features. But her rudeness wasn’t the only thing that was blatant about her. She had an earthy, raw sensuality about her. The way she moved her body. The way she inhabited her body. His body recognised it like a stallion scenting a potential mate.
He forced his mind out of the gutter. Clearly he needed to get some work-life balance if this little upstart was attracting his attention.
Her face was not what one would call classically beautiful but there was an arresting quality to it that made him want to study her for longer than was socially polite. He noted the high and haughty cheekbones you could slice a Christmas ham on. Eyelashes that were thick and long without the boost of mascara. Her skin—apart from the freckles and the diamond piercing—was creamy and make-up-free. Her hair was a mass of springy shoulder-length curls and was a mid shade of brown, apart from some rather vivid streaks of pink.
Julius was still waiting for her to make the connection between him and his parents. It didn’t usually take this long. He had got used to it over the years. Well, almost: the wide-eyed wonder. The delighted shock that produced a sickening number of gushing comments: Oh, you’re the son of the famous London West End actors Richard Ravensdale and Elisabetta Albertini! Can you get me their autographs? An invitation to opening night? Front-row seats? A back-stage pass? An audition?
But Miss Holly Perez had either never heard of his parents or was not impressed by his lineage.
Julius had to admit he found her forthrightness strangely appealing. It was such a refreshing change. He’d had his share of sycophants. People who only wanted to be associated with him because of his connection with London theatre royalty. Women who wanted to be squired by him on the red carpet in the hope of catching the eye of a casting agent. It was refreshing to be in the presence of someone who didn’t give a toss for the shallowness of his parents’ celebrity.
Julius didn’t care too much for the word ‘guardian’ the caseworker had used in reference to him. It made him sound decades older than his thirty-three years. Holly was younger than him certainly but only by about seven or eight years at the most. Twenty-five, but hardened by her experiences. He could see it in her eyes. There was no sheen of innocence in that thickly fringed brown gaze. It was full of cold, hard cynicism. A mess-with-me-at-your-peril gleam. What had led her to a life of petty crime? He’d seen the list of her offences: theft; wilful damage to property; graffiti; vandalism.
Sophia’s rescue mission was perhaps going to be a little more challenging than he’d bargained for. He’d agreed to it because he trusted his housekeeper’s judgement. But Sophia’s judgement was clearly not what it used to be. Holly had come striding in like a denim-and-cheap-cotton-clad whirlwind—asking him about his